Philip Rösler’s Story

If you have not yet heard about Germany’s Vice Chancellor, Phillip Rösler, here’s a nice little summary. Phillip Rösler currently serves as the Federal Republic of Germany’s Vice Chancellor, as well as the country’s Federal Minister of Economics and Technology. He was previously the German Minister of Health in 2009 before rising to greater heights in 2011 to current. Rösler is a German national, but his roots lay in Vietnam… Impressed yet?

Though the actual birth date of Phillip Rösler is unknown, the German government classifies it as February 24, 1973. He was born in the former Republic of Vietnam, but lost his parents during infancy. He was then adopted into a German family, who moved him out of war-torn South Vietnam all the way to the democratic West Germany. From then on, the child from Vietnam would live his life German, under the guidance of his father, a professional military man.

Rösler also served in the German military, acting as a medical soldier in the army’s Bundeswehr. At the same time, Rösler rose through the ranks of Germany’s Free Democratic Party, becoming the party’s secretary general in only 8 short years in 1992. He also studied medicine at Hanover Medical School in Germany and went on to become a haert surgeon. In a very short period of time, both Rösler’s medical and political careers reached astronomical heights.

In 2009, Philip Rösler was appointed as Germany’s Minister of Health. By 2011, Rösler became Germany’s Federal Minister of Economics and Technology, Chairman of the FDP, and the Vice Chancellor of Germany. Today, Rösler is second only to the current German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. What makes Philip Rösler so remarkable is not just his accomplishments, but also where he achieved them.

Not only has Philip Rösler elevated to astronomical heights in both his political and medical careers, he achieved them in an extremely difficult environment. German society, though very tolerant and cosmopolitan, is still more favorable of Caucasians than Asians in terms of selectivity. For this reason, it is incredible that Rösler, a Vietnamese ethnic, was able to rise through the ranks to hold three big government positions and become the second most powerful individual in the FRG.

His accomplishments, in conjunction with his Vietnamese roots, just goes to show what Vietnam’s people are capable of great things if given the opportunity. Just imagine if Rösler remained in Vietnam all his life, would he have been able to use his talents the way he did in Germany? It’s pretty hard to imagine, right?

Instead of fostering the talent of the people, the VCP simply stifles them, casts them aside, and keeps them in submission. There are many Rösler’s in Vietnam, sadly, the Party is incapable of ever utilizing these talents. This is just another example of how the Communist Party of Vietnam has failed its people. The VCP punishes intelligence and rewards idiocy. By now however, given all of the stupidity the VCP has shown, I am incapable of feeling any surprise for them anymore.

I guess I should have been more clear (my mistake), but I’ll elaborate. What I am saying is that being an Asian man in Germany, Roesler faces more challenges than his domestic counterparts when pursuing similar endeavors.

I am not calling German society racist, absolutely not. Just from practical experience, when an ethnic minority and a non-minority are considered for similar positions for anything (a job, for example), the native of that country is usually more favored for that position than the ethnic minority.

The fact of the matter is that Philip Roesler is an ethnic Vietnamese minority in a country with an ethnic Caucasian German majority. Therefore, he faces the same challenges as Asian minorities in any non-Asian nation such as the U.S., Canada, the UK, France, etc.

It is true that he has the same opportunities as everyone else. However, it is also true that because of his ethnic background, he faces more hurdles than his non-minority counterparts. It’s not exactly racism, but it’s still a social reality all multi-ethnic societies, and this includes Germany.

I know Roesler says he doesn’t face much racial discrimination, but it’s pretty far fetched and even naive for you to believe that he has “never, ever, had any problems.” Even the best of us, being minorities in certain places, have at one point in our lives faced cases of racism and discrimination.

That’s the meaning of the statement I made, hopefully I’ve made it painfully clear by now. Still, I admit that the wording for that part is a little ambiguous. I’ll consider revising it for future readers to reduce the confusion. Happy reading!

As a EU resident ,I concour with you.Philip Roesler thanks to his step-parents has much more opportunities to go up the ladder. And when he adds talent to facts ,you have the result.
Roesler won’t be the only one, I forecast we’ll see more Viet- european politicians.

Dr. Philip Rösler is an exceptional individual like President Obama of the US. In science and technology a person’s success is evaluated for his successful project or undertaking and judged primarily by a committee. But in politics, particularly for an elected member, a person is judged by population of that country. To get an approval from the majority of country is always a challenge even in an open-minded society. Also German are very smart people and competing and win among smart people is exceptionally challenging and Dr. Philip Rösler has done that.

Dr. Rösler is a very talented and capable individual who deserves to be recognized and admired for his achievements regardless of his ethnic origin or his current citizenship. But to use Dr. Rösler’s success story as an example to criticize the performance of the Vietnamese Communist Party is unfair and irrelevant.

Germany is an advanced industrial and post-industrial nation that has been at peace since 1945 even if it had been divided until 1991. Vietnam is a newly developed country that had suffered war and destruction until 1975 and a crippling economic embargo until 1994. Of course, it cannot offer the same opportunities as those in Germany.

Would Dr. Rösler have the same opportunities had he stayed in Vietnam? Of course not. But would he have had the same opportunities in Germany if he had come there with his Vietnamese parents rather than as an adopted son of a German couple? Maybe, maybe not. There are about 125,000 people of Vietnamese ethnicity living in Germany, about 41,000 are naturalized German citizens. How many of them would you think would be able to become as successful as Dr. Rösler? How many would you think would become a cabinet minister or Vice Chancellor of Germany like Dr. Rösler? My guess is none.

So, you see, as much as Dr. Rösler’s story is wonderful, it reflects well on himself, his adopted parents and Germany. But it cannot be used to criticize any Vietnamese entity anymore than it can to criticize anyone else, Vietnamese people in Vietnam or in Germany or Germans for not being as successful as this gifted individual.

Let’s praise him and even feel proud of him for being of Vietnamese origin. Let’s also praise his adopted parents for bring him up well and Germany for giving him the opportunity to use his talents. But let us not use him to denigrate anyone else.

My argument in the context of criticizing communist governance is simple: Talented individuals inside Vietnam will never be able to meet their full potential because of the repressive, corrupted, backwards, and outright self-destructive governance of the incompetent Communist Party.

Philip Rösler’s resounding success is one example I use as evidence for my argument. However, there are countless other talented men and women of Vietnamese origin across the world who have escaped Vietnam and gone on to accomplish incredible things. MMA fighter Cung Le (USA), U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Luong Xuan Viet (USA), U.S. Homeland Dept. Maritime and Border Security Director Nguyen Anh Duong (USA), Senator Ngo Thanh Hai (Canada), and many, many more. They are all incredibly talented individuals, who, if they had not left Vietnam, certainly would not have been able to utilize their incredible talents. After all, that is why they escaped in the first place.

The greater narrative in my argument is simply that inside Vietnam, under communist rule, talent is squandered. Obviously, Dr. Rösler’s accomplishments are his own, and are owed to his talents, as well as everyone in his life who helped him along the way. That has never been in dispute.

You see, it’s a matter of context in which we choose to analyze the evidence. When citizens who escape from Vietnam go on to accomplish great things all over the world, while the citizens inside are starving, getting arrested for speaking their minds, are kept ignorant by communist censorship and suppression, and generally, just living in squalor within a decaying society, then it is fair to point out the disparity and explain the reasons for this disparity.

Philip Rösler’s success, along with the success of the many Vietnamese-born individuals all over the world, in comparison to the sad state that Vietnamese citizens are living in now, is proof of the failure of the communist system.